1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image display device and an image forming apparatus provided with a function for displaying a preview of a read document image.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various functions are added to an image forming apparatus. A user can store a document image in the image forming apparatus beforehand and print the document image later on. At this time, since a document image, based on which an image is to be formed, needs to be specified, the user specifies the document, for example, on a preview screen of the image forming apparatus in some cases. This is because an erroneous document image may be formed if the document image is specified only by a file name.
As described above, a document image wished to have an image formed based thereon can be specified by confirming the preview screen. However, since the preview enables others to see this document image, many users avoid the preview. Particularly, if the document image is an image including a top secret, secret information is known to others through the preview display. A view on the display of the image forming apparatus can be enlarged, and a document image can be more clearly displayed than at present as the display technology progresses. Thus, there exist several patent documents disclosing a conventional technology for preview display in consideration of security.
The conventional technology is the one for preventing a document image to be seen by others by replacing the entire page specified by a user with another image at the time of preview display. However, the entire page is replaced by the other image if a preview is made using the above conventional technology. Thus, not only the others cannot see the document image, but also the user himself cannot specify the previewed document image. If the user himself cannot specify a document image as with the conventional technology, the meaning of the preview display is lost.